I wanted to try and get a better feel for how the rotation is shaping up for the 2010 season, so I decided to compile some stats. I didn't compile your every day stats though, I set out to find the stats that were completely based on the pitchers performance. This is a relatively new idea in baseball. Ten years ago everybody was looking at stats like ERA as the best indicator of how good a pitcher was. However, one day, a man named Voros McCracken decided that he didn't buy into that. He was convinced that a large amount of the things that go into calculating an ERA were not controlled at all by the pitcher. He went out on a limb to say that anything that happened after the ball was put into play was more luck than anything, and any statistic that was reliant on those happenings was flawed. From there, the statistics that he weighed most heavily were the ones that had nothing to do with anybody on the field except the pitcher. These stats were strikeouts, walks, and home runs allowed. He also put a good amount of importance on a pitchers ground ball rate. He stated the obvious when he said that no ground ball could ever be hit over the fence, and the slightly less obvious when he said that a ground ball was much, much less likely to go for extra bases.
I put together some stats and threw them into a spreadsheet to try and get a better feel for the Pirates 2010 rotation, and I made some pretty interesting discoveries. We're gonna spend some time on this, so we'll look at every pitcher individually. First, we'll start with Zach Duke. The stats we are going to be looking at are as follows: innings pitched, strikeouts per nine innings, walks per nine innings, home runs allowed per nine innings, ground ball percentage (the percentage of balls put into play off a pitcher that were hit on the ground), FIP (basically an adjusted ERA that ignores anything that a fielder had an influence on), and BABIP (opposing batters batting average on balls put in play). I also added in ERA and ERA-FIP to see how a pitcher really pitched compared to his ERA.
Zach Duke made his Pirates debut in 2005. He pitched phenomenally in that year, going 8-2 with a 1.81 ERA in 84.2 innings pitched. After that stint he was up and down to and from the minors for a little while before permanently joining the rotation in 2007. I'm going to ignore all the stats he compiled before '07 and just take a look at what he's done in his major league career away from the amazing couple of months he had in '05.
The first thing we notice is that Duke had a heavy work load last year. He was over worked and struggled near the end of the year because of it. The Pirates have already addressed this issue and have said that they are not going to leave him in games for as long this year. Therefore I would not expect him to get to 213 innings again. I think around 190 will be where he'll be in 2010.
Duke's 2009 was statistically his best year. He had a higher strikeout rate and also walked batters less frequently than the previous two years.
His home run rate was also pretty good, slightly higher than 2008 but still completely acceptable. That was probably attributed to his ground ball rate hitting a low, at 47.7% in 2009. Duke was giving up more fly balls than in previous years, which never spells anything good for a pitcher. However, he managed to avoid much damage, and kept his ERA under 4 for most of the season.
Like I said, near the end of his season he got roughed up a couple of times and his ERA increased substantially because of it. He ended the year with a 4.06 ERA, which is well above average for a pitcher. However, the other statistics show that he was pretty lucky last season.
His BABIP was about right where you expect it to be. The big league average is right around .300 and it is widely accepted that through a pitchers career it will average out to pretty close to that number. Duke's was .296, so there isn't much to take from that. However, his FIP was 18 points higher than his ERA, which showed that he did not pitch as well as his main numbers showed.
Duke is a pitch-to-contact guy, so he makes his living on getting ground balls and weak contact to increase the chances of getting batters out as frequently as possible. The Pirates were statistically the best defensive team in the National League, which certainly weighs in to their pitcher's statistics. However, it's a completely new defense this year so we can't expect or predict much from the them this year. Because of that, there is really no reason to believe that Duke will replicate his 2009 season. His ground ball rate has decreased each of the last 2 years, so unless his K rate keeps increasing (which is unlikely),
His ERA-FIP shows that he was pretty lucky in 2007 and 2008, and not so lucky in 2009. The law of averages says he will have another unlucky 2010. Therefore, I see no real way that Duke is going to improve on his 2009 numbers. If his BABIP is close to .300 again in 2010, I'd expect a mid-4's ERA from him at best.
Zach Duke's stuff is nothing more than average, so there is a ceiling on exactly how great of numbers he can put up. Looking at those numbers, I would say that his 2009 season was pretty close to that ceiling, and probably as close to it as he's ever going to be.
Conclusion: Zach Duke will take a step backwards in 2010.
Check back tomorrow for some encouraging news when we look at Paul Maholm.
2 comments:
Is this your only way to show something good about pirates starters?
I guess you didn't read the post, because everything in there showed something BAD about Zach Duke.
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